Today, about 2:30 in the afternoon, I got a text message from a friend who notified me (and probably the rest of her Address Book contacts) of an “Amber Alert” arising from an alleged local kidnapping.

The text, which also had been forwarded to my friend, divulged the place of alleged incident, make of a car and a license plate number. The tail-end of the message read: “KEEP THIS GOING. YOU WOULD IF IT WAS YOUR CHILD!”

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I didn’t keep the message going.

My initial reaction certainly was to send it blazing through our telecommunications highway — to every one of my contacts — but as I began to compose my very own text message, skepticism stood up to call a Time Out.

It’s now 4:13 p.m., and I’ve spent the past 90-plus minutes agonizing about my decision to not forward this message. Instead, I scoured Snopes.com, visited the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, signed up for wireless Amber Alerts and e-mailed two government agencies seeking for validation of the alleged kidnapping.

But I couldn’t just pass on a simple text message to friends for the sake of empathy and worry? Even if it turned out to be wrong?

St. Louisans are sad today. Even I, an opportunistic West Coast transplant, feel stung by the news that Belgian brewer InBev will buy St. Louis’ 130-year-old golden child, Anheuser-Busch.

It’s business, not personal.”

Isn’t that how the slogan goes? But guess what, Mr. President? It’s personal for all Americans, not just us here in St. Louis, when hallmarks of this country — your country, “the land of opportunity” — are sold to foreign businesses and investors for cheap.

And because you will fail to see your connection to this, let me reveal it for you: Your war claims lives overseas and lifestyles at home.

You and your cronies, self-proclaimed pro-lifers, started a mission to kill people — Iraqis, Americans, Britons, Italians, Ukranians, Poles, Spaniards, Australians, Danes and more. Your funneling of absurd amounts of money into this five-year debacle has also put a high onus on Americans away from the battlefield: We can’t afford to drive our cars; we can’t afford keep our homes; we can’t even hold on to our jobs. And U.S. debt — a result of your war — has reached an astronomical level. Is that safe for our national security?

Now the world is laughing at us, Mr. President, laughing and taking much like Carlos Brito, InBev’s CEO, just did. And I don’t blame the guy; it’s hard to pass up a bargain. If the U.S. dollar wasn’t so weak — again because of your war — then maybe Anheuser-Busch could’ve remained American.

Ben and I became pen pals of sorts. We sent a handful of messages and realized that we were similar in several ways, but one in particular: We were love-haters.

A couple months passed and Ben informed me that he was coming to Los Angeles for a photography assignment. He wrote saying that he’d like to meet in person, and tried to convince me to skip work on a Friday so we could instead hang out, talk, eat and laugh. But I dismissed his crazy proposal and went to work, offering a compromise to see him another time, when I didn’t have to sacrifice a day’s pay to meet a random, possibly dangerous, guy from the Internet.

And I kept my promise.

For our first unofficial date, I met Ben in Downtown Los Angeles. We walked over to The Standard Hotel, where we had two beers and two hours to talk about work, our childhood, our families, music â€” a lot about music â€” and ambitions. We ate, and we laughed.

So, he kept his promise, too.

I said it to myself three years ago, and I’ll say it again today: I don’t remember anything being as effortless as that night with Ben. It was simple. It was real. It was fresh and comfortable. Despite salty outlooks on romance, we each had a feeling that this time this love would be too big to hate.

I’m flying out to San Jose early Saturday morning. For the past week, maybe two, I’ve been counting down to my departure.Â

California, I’ve missed you.

My dad and I were chatting online earlier today and he said that he and my mom were finishing household chores because they were “preparing for a celebrity who was coming to town.”Â

My parents are so cute,” I thought, embarrassed a little that they were working hard to welcome their own daughter to a neat house; as if their house was ever messy in the first place.

I haven’t visited my family since Thanksgiving. I think it’s the longest interval between visits, despite my too-hopeful promise upon moving to St. Louis that I’d visit my hometown every three to four months. But to make up for the nearly seven-month absence, this stay will be the longest ever since moving out of the house: eight days. Eight days!Â